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JONES: Worth the wait for hall of famers

An Edmonton curling team skipped by Randy Ferbey was inducted into the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame. Three of the team members — David Nedohin, left, Scott Pfeifer and Marcel Rocque — were in Edmonton to accept the induction on Monday, Dec. 3, 2018.Photo: Larry Wong

Terry Jones

Published: December 3, 2018 - 9:53 PM

It’s crazy, but the number of slam-dunk, no-brainer, automatic greats of their game that are overlooked in so many halls of fame is shocking.

The problem, usually, is that everybody assumed they must already be in.

It happened a couple of years ago with the Edmonton Sports Hall of Fame. Incredulously, they managed to forget to enshrine Hugh Campbell, coach of the 1978-79-80-81-82 five-in-a-row Grey Cup dynasty.

Monday was another example as the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame announced the Class of 2019 at the J. Percy Page Centre in Edmonton.

The Ferbey Four is finally about to be inducted.

In all of curling history, only one other team — the Richardsons of Regina — can claim the same four Brier wins in five years as the Ferbey Four.

But none did it with the same four curlers.

And no other team made it to five consecutive Briers, indeed, five straight Brier finals.

The legacy of The Ferbey Four Edmonton-area curlers, three living in Sherwood Park, goes beyond to the development of the game and the business of curling.

There had been other great skips in the game, including Matt Baldwin, Hec Gervais and Kevin Martin from the City of Champions, but all had an assortment of different teammates for their Brier titles. And all of them were traditional last rock-throwing skips.

Randy Ferbey threw third rocks, as he did winning the Chicoutimi 1988 and Saskatoon 1989 Briers with Pat Ryan.

Ferbey’s name was on this team, but Dave Nedohin delivered the final stones like no one else when they were on top. And until Scott Pfeifer and Marcel Rocque — a.k.a., Huffer and Puffer — came along, there hadn’t been a pair of front-end players to achieve household name status like those two.

So, did they show up Monday with their noses out-of-joint and a “What took you so long attitude?”

Not even close.

“I’m just impressed that we’re going to be in the Hall of Fame. I don’t care if somebody might think there was a delay or not,” said Rocque.

“This is an exciting day for me. And the most exciting part is that we’re going in as a team.”

That’s who they were. Baldwin, Gervais, Martin and the like all changed lineups frequently and went into the Halls of Fame as individuals. For 15 years this was a team that stayed together.

“The thing that I think we were most proud of is being a team and playing together for so many years after starting from ground up,” said Nedohin.

“With so many teams it’s just a reshuffling of the top players. It’s like they come out of a blender every four years. You already know the players are all good curlers. But with us, we built the team from ground up and found all the right pieces in terms of chemistry and skills.

“Randy would be the first one to say that you don’t do anything individually. When he was inducted into the World Curling Hall of Fame, he was quite vocal about it — that he didn’t think it was right.

“And it should be team. We were the team where Randy wasn’t good enough to throw last rocks and I wasn’t smart enough to call the game,” he laughed.

“But he was right. We just checked the egos at the door and won as a team. We were always trying to win for someone else. And he was the first one to say that… even though he rode our coattails.”

Ferbey was unable to attend due to a series of international appearances with a curling sponsor.

Pfeifer said he’s kind of glad it’s happening at this late date because it adds perspective.

“These last two years have been pretty eye-opening because I’m now 41 and Randy, when we put the team together, was 39. I remember thinking Randy was old as dirt.

“Now that we’ve all passed that age, it’s kind of interesting to look back at all those years and think of all the good times we had and how long we’ve known each other.”

They were the Fab Four of curling, the first team to attract the kind of sponsorship that made it possible to have their season expenses covered before they threw a rock. They also pioneered the use of “numbered zones” to communicate the weight of the rock as it travelled down the ice and where it would end up.

And they were the featured attraction of the biggest event in all of curling history, winning their fourth and final Brier before 15,147 people that pushed the final overall crowd count to a flabbergasting 281,985, by far the highest attendance ever anywhere in the world here at home in 2005.

The team will, no doubt, end up at the top of the marquee of the May 31 induction banquet but while they might be the headliners, the most emotional induction might be that of George Stothart.

Along with Jim Donlevy, the football coach who has the claim to fame of being the most recent to win a Vanier Cup coaching the Golden Bears, and wrestling’s Ted Thresher, Stothart is from the Edmonton area.

Stothart comes from an area of sports not previously represented in the ASHoF and is an individual I grew up marveling at as a young man growing up in Lacombe.

Stothart was introduced representing all sorts of sports but especially the “silent sports” community of Alberta.

Born deaf, Stothart was a multi-sport athlete and for 64 years a basketball official, refereeing as many as 287 games in the peak year of his career.

Stothart was informed some time ago of his selection but wasn’t able to attend Tuesday and quite likely won’t be at the induction in Red Deer.

His son Perry represented him at the press conference.

“Two weeks ago he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He’s always been such a special person and never has had a critical word for anybody and he’s very proud to have been accorded this honour,” he said.

Perry said his dad was often asked why he enjoyed refereeing and usually got a good laugh with his answer.

“He always joked that being deaf and being a referee was probably a good combination.”